


Politically Bent

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Political Animals, Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover Pairings, Explicit Sexual Content, Gene Porter Shitty MD, Grand Theft Wagon, M/M, References to Drugs, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 07:31:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1542632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on Bea's prompt:</p><p>High as a kite and at least half naked, TJ tries to steal Bass’ wagon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Politically Bent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BeaRyan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/gifts), [Timid_Timbuktu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Timid_Timbuktu/gifts).



> Thank you, Tumblr, for helping me be all that I can be.

If it wasn’t the weather that killed you in Texas, then it was probably Gene Porter’s shitty-ass doctoring efforts. Bass spat on the ground and unwrapped the cut on his arm - it looked infected. 

“Fuck that whole family,” he muttered to himself, emptying the contents of his flask (shitty whisky to the rescue in a time of crisis) all over the cut, wincing and cursing _Doctor_ Porter in this dimension and every parallel one that he might exist in. He never should’ve let him lay a hand on that wound. It was bad enough what he’d done to Miles - turned him into a sackless asshat, is what. Maybe the maggots ate his junk. Fuck Gene Porter. And fuck Rachel too, just for good measure.

He didn’t miss the lot of them. It was regretful that Connor had chosen to stay behind, but he’d already spent more than his share of time watching Miles get Matheson-pussy-whipped, he didn’t need to watch his own son share the same fate. At least young Charlotte looked like she might give you a good time before shanking you to death. Bass shook his head to clear it - no reason to be thinking about Matheson poon _or_ getting shanked at this ungodly hour. He rebound his wound with the only clean bandage he had left and prayed for a nanite miracle.

Scratch that. The nanotech can go fuck itself along with the Mathesons. Wasn’t it related to them in some way, anyhow? Wasn’t Rachel like it’s mommy? Step-mommy? It made your head hurt thinking about it, actually. Bass took the last swig of the medicinal whisky and cursed again. _Damn_ , but it was fucking shitty!

One of the horses neighed and he jumped up, hand on his pistol at the ready. He’d tethered both the horses to the fattest oak tree he could find, hoping to be able to catch a few hours of shut eye in the privacy of relative shelter offered by the covered wagon he’d stolen from Miles (who in turn had pilfered it from Truman, who in turn had surely appropriated it from the American public). Miles would have probably given it to him, had he asked, but Bass had pride, not to mention a predilection for jacking wagons. But to return to the point at hand, he had hoped that the road would be devoid of humanity, and therefore sufficiently safe for him to shack up there for the night. He prayed that it was a bear who startled the horses. Bears he could deal with; people were tiresome.

He moved the canvas flap and peeked out into the darkness. It was actually a fairly well-lit night - the moon had been full and low enough to appear almost like a gigantic cheddar cheese, taunting you with its delicious dairy ways. By the looks of it, sunrise was a lifetime away. 

“Please be a fucking bear,” Bass muttered, pointing his gun towards the horses.

“I don’t think I could pass for a bear,” someone’s voice echoed from behind the tree. “I mean, even if I grew a beard, at best I’d be a twink with a beard. Not a bear.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Bass called out, lifting his oil lamp and dangling it off the side of the wagon. “Come out of there, slowly. And let me see your hands.”

There was a soft shuffle, followed by the sound of someone apparently walking to a tree.

“Fuck!”

Eventually, a moonlit form emerged from the darkness. What Bass beheld essentially was a kid - relatively speaking - a young man, roughly Connor’s age, in torn jeans slung low over his hips, and shirtless to the extent that he actually _had_ a shirt, but alas he appeared to have been wearing it wrapped around his head, turban-style. The lunatic grinned up at Bass and blinked with his strangely luminescent and bloodshot eyes.

“What are you _doing_?” Bass asked, lowering his gun once he figured that the kid didn’t exactly have anywhere to hide weaponry and therefore was likely not carrying.

“I am one with the wolves,” the kid answered.

“Holy shit, how high are you?”

“No, you don’t get it, man. I am on a spirit quest.”

“You tried to steal my wagon!” Bass gestured between the horses and the kid with his gun. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter, sweetheart.”

“I did want to take your wagon,” the kid graced Bass with a crooked smile, which he found strangely adorable. “But only because I thought the wolf spirits had led me here for that purpose. I might have been mistaken. These drugs are not like the ones I’ve taken before.”

“No shit,” Bass nodded and jumped off the wagon to take a closer look at his unexpected visitor. He still would have preferred it to be a bear, but at least this fucked-up hippie was shirtless - and, Bass had to admit, attractive. “What’s your name, Dances With Wolves?”

“Huh?”

No, of course, why would he have expected someone that age to get that reference.

“Name. What are you called? What do your people call you when they… uh…. call you?”

“Oh!” The kid threw his head back and laughed, pearly white teeth flashing in the night. Bass had no idea how someone so pretty, and apparently so stupid, could ever survive the blackout. “TJ,” the kid finally spoke. “TJ Hammond. Pleased to meet you and…,” he stuck out his hand towards Bass, “thank you for not shooting me.”

“I still might,” Bass shrugged, ignoring the proffered hand.

“And what do your people call _you_ when they call you?” The kid, TJ, swayed a bit, but Bass was impressed with his ability to recall what was probably the dumbest sentence out of his mouth. Well, that night anyways.

“Bass.”

“That’s a fish.”

“That’s the name of the guy whose wagon you tried to steal, not to mention, who is still contemplating shooting you where you stand.”

“Woulda shot me already,” TJ slurred and made an attempt to wave Bass off, only to upend his balance and come tumbling down into the grass. Bass caught him under the arms and propped him up against the side of the wagon. “See? You didn’t shoot me. And now you saved my life.”

“Hardly.”

“It was a long way to fall.”

“Depends on what kind of drugs you’re on, I guess,” Bass conceded, looking from the kid, who clearly was high as a kite, possibly higher, to the ground. Why did God keep putting idiots on his path? “Did you say your name was TJ _Hammond_?”

“I did,” TJ confirmed with a flash of sudden clarity.

“Of the Plains Nation Hammonds? Weren’t your parents Bud and Elaine Hammond?”

“Maybe. Anyways, she goes by Elaine Barrish now.”

“Nice,” Bass shook his head. The kid’s covert game could use some improvement.

The Hammonds had been to the Plains Nation what Miles and Bass had been to the Monroe Republic, in other words, a benevolent (ha!) totalitarian regime. Elaine had been the brains _and_ the brawn behind the bluster of Bud, and Bass never forgot the determination on her face when they had drawn up the borders and signed their accord. Now, looking at the kid before him, he could see his mother’s falsely-fragile beauty reflected in his features.

“TJ Hammond, I’ll be damned. I remember you played the piano at the reception, when we…” he trailed off, feeling suddenly as ancient as a fossil, and equally as dumb, and cleared his throat. That was ten years ago, and the kid was really just a kid back then.

“Pianos,” TJ’s eyes clouded over and his head lolled from side to side against the canvas of the wagon. “Funny thing about pianos. Eventually, they come and take them apart for wood and string. Do you know what they need the string for?”

“To use as a garotte, I’d imagine,” Bass replied and licked his lips. TJ Hammond, even ten years ago, at sixteen, had already been quite pretty, talented with his fingers, and openly gay. He remembered the long talk he had with Miles about it, late into the night, as he tried to query the stars and his own best friend how much longer they would need to hide from the world the fact that they shared a bed. TJ Fucking Hammond. What were the chances?

“You look familiar,” the stoner suddenly perked up, his eyes becoming focused.

“I don’t see how,” Bass lied. Unless whatever the hell this guy had ingested made him simultaneously clairvoyant and gave him night vision, he wasn’t going to play that game. 

“You just said… You saw me playing the piano at some reception.”

“You’re stoned off your ass, don’t go telling me what I just said!” Bass snapped, surly at his own mistake.

“General Monroe!”

Fuck this night a thousand ways with a machete.

“Try again.”

“No, no,” TJ wagged his finger in front of Bass’ face like a stern school teacher. “I remember you now. You didn’t have the… uh…” he waved at Bass’ beard, “And your hair was a little more… hm…” He tried to gesture something that would have not won anyone a game of charades, but broke out into a fit of giggles instead. “And you had that other guy with you… Taller, darker, kinda dickish… Mike? Midas?”

“Miles,” Bass gave up on life.

“Yes! Miles! See, I knew ‘Bass’ wasn’t any kind of a name. Sebastian Monroe! Hell, if _my_ name had been Sebastian, you can be damn sure I wouldn’t be going by some fishy moniker.”

“Well, good for you, TJ.” Bass squinted and tried very hard not to just punch the kid in the face and drag his unconscious body into the wagon. It was as if fate, the Gods, and the nano were determined to play little fucked-up games with him. “What’s TJ even short for, anyway? Never did ask.”

“Thomas Jefferson.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Maybe I am. _Bass_.” Something about the way the kid had hissed his name definitely made Bass regret not clocking him. Or kissing him. Either way, it wasn’t ideal.

“And where is he now? Your Miles? Never thought the two of you would ever be parted.”

“You had a lot of opinions back then?”

“You even had like a… love emblem thing, it was emblazoned on all your stuff. A big M with a circle around it.”

“You really need to just shut the hell up, kid.”

For a moment, it appeared as if TJ was transfixed by the moon and about to howl at it. The light sparkled in his irises, giving them a deep sapphire sheen.

“It’s wearing off,” he said and licked his lips, as if suddenly feeling parched. “Ah, fuck. I think I’m gonna be sick.”

Bass rolled his eyes and wondered if he should get the kid a bucket, but apparently his ruminations came too late.

“God fucking dammit!” Bass exclaimed, as TJ doubled over and projectile vomited all over the grass in front of him. The former President of the Monroe Republic barely had enough time and wherewithal to jump back. Thank god for small favors. Last thing he needed was the smell of some twink’s vomit all over his boots for weeks on end. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered, as the kid went from projectile into dry heaving, and then he cursed his own weaker nature, because - _motherfucker_ \- but he was going to take care of that little shit.

He still had a canteen with fresh water in the wagon, which would come in handy. The turban-shirt had fallen off the kid’s head, by some miracle not landing in the pile of vomit, and Bass had picked it up and soaked it in water. He wrapped his arms around the kid, steadying him, pressing the impromptu compress against his face and the back of his neck.

“You’re such a nuisance,” Bass muttered, running his fingers through the kid’s messy brown hair (in some way, it reminded him of Miles), as he slowly got his dry heaving under control. “Here, drink this.” He shoved the canteen into TJ’s hands and watched him take a few long swallows. “Alright. Don’t get excited. Don’t want you puking that water up too.”

“Oh god, I hate everything.”

“I’m gonna guess whatever you took was mushroom based.”

“ _Amanita muscaria_ ,” the kid whined and slumped against Bass, his damp forehead pressed into the nook of the older man’s neck.

“Fucking fly agaric? Kids these days,” Bass shook his head. Why you’d eat toxic mushrooms when there was still perfectly passable booze around was completely beyond him. “Come inside. You should lie down.” Bass pulled at the younger man gently, hoping not to disturb the precarious balance between his guts and the outside world. He managed to get him into the wagon without any further incident. “But if you puke inside my wagon, I swear to fucking god…”

He didn’t finish his sentence because his uninvited guest had apparently already departed for the land of Morpheus.

“Well… fuck,” Bass concluded, and lay down next to him, pulling his only blanket over them both.

***

It was light out, half of his body felt a lot colder than the other half, and someone was definitely staring at him. Without giving his eyes time to adjust, Bass sat up and pointed his gun at the face in front of him. And then it all sort of came back to him: the horses, the shirt-turban, the puke. TJ Hammond, in the flesh, and even more attractive by daylight. And fuck it if he wasn’t still a red-blooded and virile man, because age difference sure never stopped him much before with women, so why should it give him pause with this kid.

“Morning, General,” Bass’ visitor croaked weakly and tried to clear his throat. 

“Don’t,” Bass shook his head. “I’m sure half your esophagus is melted anyways after your shenanigans last night.”

“Sorry to drop in on you unannounced, and…” TJ tilted his head to the side, “... thanks for not, you know, shooting me.” 

He was still shirtless, and was wearing Bass’ only blanket as some kind of a cape over his shoulders.

“The hell were you thinking?” Bass muttered, sitting up and running his fingers through his hair. He needed more water, a damn comb, or at least a hat, because if there was one thing no one ever needed to see was a curly-haired man’s bedhead first thing in the morning. “You got a deathwish, or something?”

“Yeah, you could say that,” the kid replied, avoiding Bass’ eyes and tucking his hands deeper into the blanket. 

“What are you even doing in Texas?” It wasn’t as if Bass actually cared, still, he felt compelled to ask. “Could’ve been killed,” he added when TJ wasn’t particularly forthcoming. “Or worse.”

“Yeah? You think I’m pretty enough for ‘or worse’?”

“Quit being a smartass, TJ. I practically held you hair back last night, while you puked. I figured, least you could do is answer my questions.”

He was fully sober now, Bass could tell, as he watched the kid’s face scrunch up and burrow further into the blanket. He was wearing a shirt himself, still, it would have been nice to not hog that one vestige of comfort.

“Just… you know how sometimes you meet someone and you think - that’s it, they’re the one! Only instead, they turn out to be a giant dickbag, rip your heart out, and then laugh in your face while they’re crushing it?”

Bass stared at the younger man, trying to figure out whether he was just fucking with him, or if this was an actual post-vomital moment of sharing. They did, after all, technically spend the night together.

“No,” Bass lied. “Doesn’t sound familiar.”

“Well, that happened to me. So I took off. Couldn’t stand sticking around. Everything reminded me of that asshole, you know?”

“So you went on your uh… vision quest?”

“The vision quest came later.” TJ moved his hand to brush hair out of his eyes when Bass caught his wrist. He tried to yank it away at first, but then seemed resigned to let his host examine his skin. “You always insist on reading a guy’s history in his scars?”

“No man is worth this,” Bass muttered, running his fingers over the pinkened flesh of the jagged lines along TJ’s wrist. The scars were recent, by their coloration, and they had been neatly stitched up. The kid had been lucky - might have gotten Gene Porter, Shitty MD. Might have been walking around Texas with a festering wound. Only then did Bass remember the cut on his own shoulder and mentally cursed again. Hopefully his self-medication the previous night had sufficiently deterred any sepsis.

“What about you? What happened there?” TJ’s free hand caught hold of Bass’ left wrist, where the dirty old bandage obscured the ugly burn scar that now hid his old tattoo forever.

“This wasn’t about a guy,” Bass whispered.

“Then what was it about?”

“It was about unbecoming myself.”

“Then perhaps we’re more similar that you think.”

“No, TJ. You tried to _undo_ yourself. To make yourself no more. It’s different. All I wanted to do was not be who I used to be.” Bass dropped the younger man’s hand and turned away. “But it turned out I am more than just what’s written on my skin.”

“I loved him,” TJ whispered. “Nothing hurts more than love.”

“Real love’s not supposed to hurt, kid.” He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. And what did he know, himself, about real love. Like a loyal dog, he followed Miles only to be discarded when he was no longer convenient. Sure, there was love there, and friendship too. But there was also a bitterness, and a chasm of betrayal that no phantom of love gone-by could traverse. TJ’s eyes were a deeper shade of blue than Bass’ own, and he found himself staring into them, wondering whether there was a point in the night when he could have turned back and walked away. Or if he had been doomed to this the moment TJ had stumbled from behind that tree, with a shirt on his head and poison in his veins. “I can’t fix you, kid.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“Then why’re you looking at me like that?”

“‘Cuz I like what I see, I guess.”

That was as blatant an invitation as Bass was ever gonna get. And that was good, because TJ wasn’t sixteen and playing piano at his parents’ political shindig anymore. And Bass wanted him, more probably than he had wanted anyone in a very long time. Here was an oasis in which he could drown his loneliness, and perhaps a baptismal font from which he could arise transformed. Or, you know, at least no longer horny. All lofty thoughts aside, Bass had not seen a pretty mouth like that since longer than he could recall.

“Come here, you.” Bass pulled TJ by the back of his neck, closer, closer still, until their chests pressed together and their mouths were mere millimeters apart. Then he paused, and waited until the kid craned his neck the rest of the way to bring their lips in contact, just to be sure it wasn’t solely his choice.

It was soft at first, and then Bass felt teeth, nibbling insistently on his lower lip. It made his heart beat faster and he pulled the younger man closer, taking more control of the kiss, exploring TJ’s mouth with his own lips and his tongue. His breath was warm and surprisingly not rancid, all things considered, so Bass kissed him again, deeper, until he felt TJ moaning softly into his mouth. That response sent a shiver of desire down Bass’ spine. Oh yes. Nothing about this was a bad idea.

“You sure you’re okay now?” Bass asked, letting go of the kid’s lips, and moving on to pressing seeking kisses to his dimpled chin, to the sharp bones of his jaw.

“That’s really sweet and totally unnecessary.”

“Fine, then shut up.”

To demonstrate his point, Bass plastered his hand over TJ’s mouth, while his own lips trailed lines down the long tendons of the kid’s neck. He felt TJ’s tongue hotly probing his palm - and that was arousing too. Nothing about the kid was subpar or unremarkable. Bass dropped his head lower, trailing his tongue and teeth over TJ’s collarbones, sucking the skin there into his mouth, then releasing and watching it turn pink. He would love to leave hickeys all over that surprisingly creamy white flesh. His own had become browned and weather-worn, all thanks to the Texas sun and wind. Thanks to decades of blood and war, and all your misbegotten doings being written into your skin in a map of endless lines. But not him, not TJ. The map of his body was a blank canvas, and Bass wanted to use it to rewrite his own destiny.

Bass’ teeth found a nipple next and bit down, soft enough to tease, hard enough to make TJ arch his back as beautifully as he did anything else. Bass wanted to play him the same way he had watched the kid playing the piano so many years back. To pull notes out of him that no one had brought forth yet. It was pure hubris, but still, was he not Sebastian Monroe? TJ moaned with each kiss and each bite, sinking his own fingers into the unruly curls of Bass’ hair. His fingers felt strong and agile. He had good hands, and Bass wanted to feel them all over him. Perhaps if he just kept kissing down his shockingly well-defined abs…

“Damn boy, you’re obnoxiously hot,” Bass breathed into the skin of TJ’s stomach, making him laugh and buck up gently, the material of his barely held on jeans brushing against Bass’ beard.

“Mmmm, too hot, Bass? Maybe take out your hose, put out the fire?”

“Aren’t you too young to know what a fire hose is?”

“Fuck’s sakes, I was eleven when the lights went out.”

Perhaps, Bass thought, he should just shut up and proceed to the main course. He dipped his tongue into TJ’s belly button and let his teeth worry the sensitive skin around it. Distraction in sex, as well as in war, was always a valid tactic. There was a pleasure trail just underneath, and Bass couldn’t help but wonder at how aptly named that part of anatomy (if you could even call it that) was. The jeans slid all too easily off TJ’s hips.

“Of course, you’re not wearing underwear.”

“That’s a luxury one really cannot afford in this day and age,” TJ mumbled and bit down on his lip because Bass’ beard now grazed against the skin of his very interested cock. He flung his arm over his eyes, lips parted, his Adam’s apple softly bobbing up at the base of his neck. Bass thought he was a vision like that, perched upon the very threshold of debauchery.

Bass slowly rubbed his face against TJ’s rapidly hardening cock. His scruff glancing over the sensitive skin of TJ’s cockhead before finally snaking out his tongue to lick at the slit, in that coy way that always drove Miles crazy. No, fuck Miles, he didn’t deserve Bass’ superior blowjobs. And dammit if Bass didn’t know their worth! TJ whimpered, and Bass licked a long stripe from the very base to the tip of his cock, trying to feel every vein and fold as he moved along. Oh, this was going to be a lot of fun.

“Fucking hell, General!” TJ tried to thrust up, but Bass had his hands firmly planted on the appealingly sharp juts of his hipbones.

“All in due course,” Bass breathed against the skin of his younger lover’s boner and finally took it all in, reveling in the feel of it on his tongue, in his throat, loving the way TJ moaned, low and dirty, with each movement.

He had never regretted not having lube this much before. There was plenty they could still do, true, but Bass was spreading TJ’s thighs and getting a handful of those perfectly round globes, and he just _wanted_ to get up in there, far up inside that damn kid. He swallowed, practically angrily, around the cock down his throat, ripping another lustful moan from TJ’s throat. He hadn’t wanted to devour a person this much since… well, it really didn’t bear thinking about.

“God, you’re fucking gorgeous,” Bass sighed, letting TJ’s cock slip from between his lips, and kissing along the defined muscle lines around his groin. “There isn’t a part of you that’s not beautiful.”

“Jesus, shut up…”

“Really pisses me off, you know, that you tried to kill yourself.”

“Bass…” TJ bucked up again, finding the cold air on his cock, instead of Bass’ lips, rather unappealing. “Please,” he begged softly.

“I guess I’ll just have to show you the better use to which we can put your body, so that you never try to pull that shit again.”

“Bass…” The kid pulled hard on him, bringing their mouths together with such ferocity that their teeth clashed. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to actually _care_. He had promised himself after Miles he’d never allow himself to care again. Caring made you weak, and weakness made you dead, and Sebastian Monroe had made a name for himself for giving death the good old ‘fuck off.’

“I really wanna be inside you,” Bass confessed, breathing heavily into the flushed skin of TJ’s neck.

“Yeah, I think our interests are aligned on that, General.” TJ grinned and seemed to read the concern written over Bass’ face. “Christ, Bass, just use your spit. You think it’s my first time to the rodeo?”

God, he was pretty _and_ mouthy, and fucked up in some very not unappealing ways. But he was also wounded and had a man-sized hole inside his heart, and Bass had _promised_ himself he wouldn’t do this again. He wouldn’t try to fill that hole, not when his own void was gaping miles wide. Ha. Miles wide. And when the hell did sex become goddamn Plato’s _Symposium_ anyways? He spat in his hand and hoped that it would be sufficient.

TJ’s head was thrown back again, his neck vulnerable and exposed to the elements (including Bass’ lips and teeth), his eyes half-mast, lips parted to let out soft moans and words of encouragement as Bass slid slowly inside him. He burned hot too, like a furnace, every part of him was a coal too hot to touch, and Bass clung to him, needing to siphon off the fire that burned inside those limbs, between those ribs.

“Fuck, you’re so…”

But TJ didn’t let him finish his sentence, it wasn’t words he craved, his mouth slamming against Bass’ lips, hands pulling at his hair, clawing at his back, leaving angry red trails in the wake of his fingernails.

“Come on, just _take_ me!” There was an order Bass was more than happy to follow. The raw need in TJ’s eyes drove him forward, inwards, onwards, thrust after thrust of flesh hitting firm flesh. God, he wanted this, he _needed_ this. He deserved this.

They didn’t last long, but Bass didn’t mind, palming TJ’s cock between their sweat-slicked bodies as he felt himself explode into the hot hold of TJ’s insides. He milked every last drop from TJ’s cock, mesmerized by the streaks of it landing in the grooves between his abs. He slumped stickily against TJ, trying to catch his breath, reveling in the the empty calm that set into his limbs and his mind. He could feel the press of TJ’s thighs around him, holding him close, holding him in, and the soft meandering of his musician fingers over his own skull. He closed his eyes and focused his other senses. Nothing but birds outside and the sound of a breeze sweeping over the covering of the wagon. He wondered if the horses needed to be taken to a better pasture for sustenance, which logically raised concern over their own supplies.

Oh. Right. _Their_ supplies. He hadn’t planned on becoming a couple again when he set out from Willoughby.

“Where the hell were you even going?” he mumbled tiredly into the side of TJ’s neck.

“You mean besides the road to ruin?” TJ’s lips glanced Bass’ temple and he shifted into a more comfortable position, still pressed close.

“Do you want company?” Bass asked, inhaling the scent of TJ’s skin along with the aroma of his own surrender.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

But he did. He did ask. A choice had been made - and it was impulsive, foolhardy, and probably extremely ill-advised for the both of them. But it had been theirs alone.

“Can you shoot a gun, kid?”

“I can do _lots_ of things, Bass.”

And maybe, all things considered, they both could have made a much worse alliance.


End file.
